This recrudescence of oppression probably had an influence on the people, for there came a revulsion of feeling adverse to the proscribed race, inflamed by the ceaseless labors of the frailes whose denunciatory eloquence knew no cessation. Under these circumstances the Jews and Moors seem to have had recourse to the Roman curia, always ready to speculate by selling privileges, whether it had power to grant them or not, and then to withdraw them for a consideration. We shall have ample occasion to see hereafter prolonged transactions of the kind arising from the operation of the Inquisition; those with the Jews at this time seem to have been closed by a motu proprio of May 31, 1484, doubtless procured from Sixtus IV by pressure from the sovereigns, in which the pope expresses his displeasure at learning that in Spain, especially in Andalusia, Christians, Moors and Jews dwell together; that there is no distinction of vestments, that the Christians act as servants and nurses, the Moors and Jews as physicians, apothecaries, farmers of ecclesiastical revenues etc., pretending that they hold papal privileges to that effect. Any such privileges he withdraws and he orders all officials, secular and ecclesiastical, to enforce strictly the canonical decrees respecting the proscribed races.[364] Under these impulses the municipalities, which, in 1462, had petitioned to have the prescriptive laws repealed now enforced them with renewed vigor and even exceeded them, as at Balmaseda, where the Jews were ordered to depart. They appealed to the throne, representing that they lived in daily fear for life and property and begged the royal protection, which was duly granted.[365]

Subjected to these perpetual and harassing vicissitudes, the Jews had greatly declined both in numbers and wealth. An assessment of the poll-tax, made in 1474, shows that in the dominions of Castile there were only about twelve thousand families left, or from fifty to sixty thousand souls, although there were still two hundred and sixteen separate aljamas. Their weakness and poverty are indicated by the fact that such communities as those of Seville, Toledo, Córdova, Burgos, etc., paid much less than inconspicuous places prior to 1391. The aljama of Ciudad-Real, which had paid, in 1290, a tax of 26,486 maravedís, had disappeared; the only one left in La Mancha was Almagro, assessed at 800 maravedís.[366] The work of Martínez and San Vicente Ferrer was accomplishing itself. Popular abhorrence had grown, while the importance of the Jews as a source of public revenue had fatally diminished. The end was evidently approaching, but a consideration of its horrors must be postponed while we glance at the condition of the renegades who had sought shelter from the storm by adopting the faith of the oppressor.

The Conversos, in steadily increasing numbers, had successfully worked out their destiny, accumulating honors, wealth and popular hatred. In both Castile and Aragon they filled lucrative and influential positions in the public service and their preponderance in Church and State was constantly becoming more marked. In Catalonia, however, they were regarded with contempt and, though the boast that Catalan blood was never polluted by inter-mixture is exaggerated, it is not wholly without foundation. The same is true of Valencia, where intermarriage only occurred among the rural population. Throughout Spain, moreover, the farming of all the more important sources of revenue passed into their hands and thus they inherited the odium as well as the profits of the Jews.[367]

The beginning of the end was seen at Toledo where, in 1449, Alvaro de Luna made a demand on the city for a million maravedís for the defence of the frontier and it was refused. He ordered the tax-gatherers to collect it. They were Conversos and when they made the attempt the citizens arose and sacked and burnt not only their houses but those of the Conversos in general. The latter organized in self-defence and endeavored to suppress the disturbance but were defeated, when those who were wealthy were tortured and immense booty was obtained. In vain Juan II sought to punish the city; the triumphant citizens, with the magistrates at their head, organized a court in which the question was argued whether the Conversos could hold any public office. In spite of the evident illegality of this and of active opposition led by the famous Lope de Barrientos, Bishop of Cuenca, it was decided against the Conversos in a quasi-judicial sentence, known as the Sentencia-Estatuto which, in the bitterness of its language, reveals the extreme tension existing between the Old and New Christians. The Conversos were stigmatized as more than suspect in the faith and as in reality Jews; they were declared incapable of holding office and of bearing witness against Old Christians and those who held positions were ejected.[368] The disturbances spread to Ciudad-Real, where the principal offices were held by Conversos. The Order of Calatrava, which had long endeavored to get possession of the city, espoused the side of the Old Christians; there was considerable fighting in the streets and for five days the quarter occupied by the Conversos was exposed to pillage.[369] Thus the hatred which of old had been merely a matter of religion had become a matter of race. The one could be conjured away by baptism; the other was indelible and the change was of the most serious import, exercising for centuries its sinister influence on the fate of the Peninsula.

The Sentencia-Estatuto threatened to introduce a new principle into public and canon law, both of which had always upheld the brotherhood of Christians and had encouraged conversions by prescribing the utmost favor for converts. Nicholas V was appealed to and responded, September 24, 1449, with a bull declaring that all the faithful are one; that the laws of Alfonso X and his successors, admitting converts to all the privileges of Christians, were to be enforced and he commissioned the Archbishops of Toledo and Seville, the Bishops of Palencia, Avila and Córdova, and the Abbot of San Fagun to excommunicate all who sought to invalidate them.[370] More than this seems to have been needed and, in 1450, he formally excommunicated Pedro Sarmiento and his accomplices as the authors of the Sentencia-Estatuto and again, in 1451, he repeated his bull of 1449. Finally, in the same year the synods of Vitoria and Alcalá condemned it and Alfonso de Montalvo, the foremost jurist of the time, pronounced it to be illegal.[371] It never, in fact, was of binding force, but the effort made to set it aside shows how dangerous a menace it was and how it expressed a widespread public opinion. It was the first fitful gust of the tornado.

Toledo remained the hot-bed of disturbance. In 1461 the martial Archbishop, Alonso Carrillo commissioned the learned Alonso de Oropesa, General of the Geronimites to investigate the cause of dissension. He did so and reported that there were faults on both sides and, at the request of the archbishop, he proceeded to write his Lumen ad Revelationem Gentium to prove the unity of the faithful, but, while he was engaged in this pious labor the inextinguishable feud broke out afresh.[372] Any chance disturbance might bring this about and the opportunity was furnished in 1467, when the canons, who enjoyed a revenue based on the bread of the town of Maqueda, farmed it out to a Jew. Alvaro Gómez, an alcalde mayor, was lord of Maqueda; his alcaide beat the Jew and seized the bread for the use of the castle; the canons promptly imprisoned the alcaide and summoned Gómez to answer. When he came the quarrel grew bitterer; the Count of Cifuentes, leader of one of the factions of the city and protector of the Conversos, espoused the cause of Gómez, while Fernando de la Torre, a leader of the Conversos, hoping to revenge the defeat of 1449, boasted that he had at command four thousand well-armed fighting men, being six times more than the Old Christians could muster. Matters were ripe for an explosion and, on July 21st, at a conference held in the cathedral, the followers of the two parties taunted each other beyond endurance; swords were drawn and blood polluted the sanctuary, though only one man was slain. The canons proceeded to fortify and garrison the cathedral, which was attacked the next day. The clergy, galled by the fire of the assailants, to create a diversion, started a conflagration in the calle de la Chapineria, which spread until eight streets were destroyed—the richest in Toledo, crowded with shops full of costly merchandise. The device was successful; the Conversos were disheartened and lost ground till, on the 29th, Cifuentes and Gómez fled, while Fernando de la Torre and his brother Alvaro were captured and hanged. The triumphant faction removed from office all their opponents and revived with additional rigor the Sentencia-Estatuto. Toledo at the time belonged to the party of the pretender Alfonso XII but, when the citizens sent to him to confirm what they had done, he refused and the city soon afterwards transferred its allegiance to Henry IV.[373] It is quite probable that, in reward for this, he confirmed the Sentencia-Estatuto for when, about the same time, Ciudad-Real revolted from Alfonso and adhered to Henry, he granted, July 14, 1468, to that city that thenceforward no Converse should hold municipal office.[374] In the all-pervading lawlessness such disturbances as those of Toledo met with neither repression nor punishment. In 1470 Valladolid saw a similar tumult, in which the Old Christians and Conversos flew to arms and struggled for mastery. The former sent for Ferdinand and Isabella who came, but the majority of the citizens preferred Henry IV and the royal pair were glad to escape.[375]

Everywhere the hatred between the Old Christians and the New was manifesting itself in this deplorable fashion. In Córdova we are told that the Conversos were very rich and had bought not only the offices but the protection of Alonso de Aguilar, whose power and high reputation commanded universal respect, while the Old Christians ranged themselves under the Counts of Cabra and the Bishop, Pedro de Córdova y Solier. Only a spark was needed to produce an explosion and an accident during a, procession, March 14, 1473, furnished the occasion. With shouts of viva la fe de Dios the mob arose and pillage, murder and fire were let loose upon the city. Alonso and his brother Gonsalvo—the future Great Captain—quelled the riot at the cost of no little bloodshed, but it burst forth again a few days later and, after a combat lasting forty-eight hours the Aguilars were forced to take refuge in the alcázar carrying with them such Conversos and Jews as they could. Then followed a general sack in which every kind of outrage and cruelty was perpetrated, until the fury of the mob was exhausted by the lack of victims. Finally Alonso came to terms with the city authorities, who banished the Conversos for ever and such poor wretches as had escaped torch and dagger were thrust forth to be robbed and murdered with impunity on the highways.[376]

Laborers from the country, who chanced to be in Córdova, carried the welcome news to neighboring places and the flame passed swiftly through Andalusia from town to town. Baena was kept quiet by the Count of Cabra, Palma by Luis Portocarrero, Ecija by Fadrique Manrique and Seville and Jerez by Juan de Guzman and Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, but elsewhere the havoc was terrible. At Jaen, the Constable of Castile, Miguel Luis de Iranzo, was treacherously murdered while kneeling before the altar; his wife, Teresa de Torres, was barely able to escape, with her children, to the alcázar, and the Conversos were plundered and dispatched. Only at Almodovar del Campo do we hear of any justice executed on the assassins, for there Rodrigo Giron, Master of Calatrava, hanged some of the most culpable. The king, we are told, when the news was brought to him, grieved much, but inflicted no punishment.[377]

On the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1474, a Converso of Córdova, Anton de Montoro, addressed to them a poem in which he gives a terrible picture of the murders committed with impunity on his brethren, whose purity of faith he asserts. Fire and sword had just ravaged the aljama of Carmona and fresh disasters were threatening at Seville and Córdova.[378] Dominicans and Franciscans were thundering from the pulpits and were calling on the faithful to purify the land from the pollution of Judaism, secret and open. It was commonly asserted and believed that the Christianity of the Conversos was fictitious, and fanaticism joined with envy and greed in stimulating the massacres that had become so frequent. The means adopted to win over the Jewish converts had not been so gentle as to encourage confidence in the sincerity of their professions and, rightly or wrongly, they were almost universally suspected. The energy with which the new sovereigns enforced respect for the laws speedily put an end to the hideous excesses of the mob, for we hear of no further massacres, but the abhorrence entertained for the successful renegades, whose wealth and power were regarded as obtained by false profession of belief in Christ, was still wide-spread, though its more violent manifestations were restrained. Wise forbearance, combined with vigorous maintenance of order, would in time have brought about reconciliation, to the infinite benefit of Spain, but at a time when heresy was regarded as the greatest of crimes and unity of faith as the supreme object of statesmanship, wise forbearance and toleration were impossible. After suppressing turbulence the sovereigns therefore felt that there was still a duty before them to vindicate the faith. Thus, after long hesitation, their policy with regard to the Conversos was embodied in the Inquisition, introduced towards the end of 1480. The Jewish question required different treatment and it was solved, once for all, in most decisive fashion.

The Inquisition had no jurisdiction over the Jew, unless he rendered himself amenable to it by some offence against the faith. He was not baptized; he was not a member of the Church and therefore was incapable of heresy, which was the object of inquisitional functions. He might, however, render himself subject to it by proselytism, by seducing Christians to embrace his errors, and this was constantly alleged against Jews, although their history shows that, unlike the other great religions, Judaism has ever been a national faith with no desire to spread beyond the boundaries of the race. As the chosen people, Israel has never sought to share its God with the Gentiles. There was more foundation, probably, in the accusation that the secret perversity of the Conversos was encouraged by those who had remained steadfast in the faith, that circumcisions were secretly performed and that contributions to the synagogues were welcomed.

Isabella tried a partial experiment of this kind in 1480, apparently to supplement the Inquisition, founded about the same time. Andalusia was the province where the Jews were most numerous and she commenced by ordering the expulsion from there of all who would not accept Christianity and threatening with death any new settlers.[379] We have no details as to this measure and only know that it was several times postponed and that it was apparently abandoned.[380] A bull of Sixtus IV, in 1484, shows us that Jews were still dwelling there undisturbed and, when the final expulsion took place in 1492, Bernaldez informs us that from Andalusia eight thousand households embarked at Cadiz, besides many at Cartagena and the ports of Aragon.[381]

That there was vacillation is highly probable, for policy and fanaticism were irreconcilable. The war with Granada was calling for large expenditures, to which the Jews were most useful contributors and the finances were in the hands of two leading Jews, Abraham Senior and Isaac Abravanel, to whose skilful management its ultimate success was largely due. It may be that the threatened expulsion was rather a financial than a religious measure, adopted with a view of selling suspensions and exemptions, and this may also perhaps explain a similar course adopted by Ferdinand when, in May, 1486, he ordered the inquisitors of Aragon to banish all Jews of Saragossa from the archbishopric of Saragossa and the bishopric of Albarracin, in the same way as they had been banished from the sees of Seville, Córdova and Jaen.[382] The sovereigns knew when to be tolerant and when to give full rein to fanaticism, as was evinced in their treatment of renegades and Conversos at the capture of Málaga as contrasted with the liberal terms offered in the capitulations of Almería and Granada. They were prepared to listen to the counsel of those who opposed all interference with the Jewish population, in whose favor there were powerful influences at work. Isabella apparently hesitated long between statesmanship and her conceptions of duty, while Torquemada never ceased to urge upon her the service to be rendered to Christ by clearing her dominions of the descendants of his crucifiers.[383]

There was no lack of effort to inflame public opinion and to excite still further the hostility so long and so carefully cultivated. A story had wide circulation that Maestre Ribas Altas, the royal physician, wore a golden ball attached to a cord around his neck; that Prince Juan, only son of the sovereigns, begged it of him and managed to open it, when he found inside a parchment on which was painted a crucifix with the physician in an indecent attitude; that he was so affected that he fell sick and, after much persuasion, revealed the cause, adding that he would not recover until the Jew was burnt, which was accordingly done and Ferdinand consented to the expulsion of the accursed sect.[384] Then we are told that, on Good Friday, 1488, some Jews, to avenge an insult, stoned a rude cross which stood on the hill of Gano near Casar de Palomero; they were observed and denounced, when the Duke of Alba burnt the rabbi and several of the culprits; the cross was repaired and carried in solemn procession to the parish church, where it still remains an object of popular veneration.[385] It is to this period also that we may presumably refer the fabrication of a correspondence, discovered fifty years later among the archives of Toledo by Archbishop Siliceo, between Chamorro, Prince of the Jews of Spain and Uliff, Prince of those of Constantinople, in which the latter, replying to a request for counsel, tells the former “as the king takes your property, make your sons merchants that they may take the property of the Christians; as he takes your lives, make your sons physicians and apothecaries, that they may take Christian lives; as he destroys your synagogues, make your sons ecclesiastics, that they may destroy the churches; as he vexes you in other ways, make your sons officials, that they may reduce the Christians to subjection and take revenge.”[386]

The most effective device, however, was a cruel one, carried out by Torquemada unshrinkingly to the end. In June, 1490, a Converso named Benito García, on his return from a pilgrimage to Compostella, was arrested at Astorga on the charge of having a consecrated wafer in his knapsack. The episcopal vicar, Dr. Pedro de Villada, tortured him repeatedly till he obtained a confession implicating five other Conversos and six Jews in a plot to effect a conjuration with a human heart and a consecrated host, whereby to cause the madness and death of all Christians, the destruction of Christianity and the triumph of Judaism. Three of the implicated Jews were dead, but the rest of those named were promptly arrested and the trial was carried on by the Inquisition. After another year spent in torturing the accused, there emerged the story of the crucifixion at La Guardia of a Christian child, whose heart was cut out for the purpose of the conjuration. The whole tissue was so evidently the creation of the torture-chamber that it was impossible to reconcile the discrepancies in the confessions of the accused, although the very unusual recourse of confronting them was tried several times; no child had anywhere been missed and no remains were found on the spot where it was said to have been buried. The inquisitors finally abandoned the attempt to frame a consistent narrative and, on November 16, 1491, the accused were executed at Avila; the three deceased Jews were burned in effigy, the two living ones were torn with red-hot pincers and the Conversos were “reconciled” and strangled before burning. The underlying purpose was revealed in the sentence read at the auto de fe, which was framed so as to bring into especial prominence the proselyting efforts of the Jews and the Judaizing propensities of the Conversos and no effort was spared to produce the widest impression on the people. We happen to know that the sentence was sent to La Guardia, to be read from the pulpit, and that it was translated into Catalan and similarly published in Barcelona, showing that it was thus brought before the whole population—a thing without parallel in the history of the Inquisition. The cult of the Saint-Child of La Guardia—El santo niño de la Guardia—was promptly started with miracles and has been kept up to the present day, although the sanctity of the supposed martyr has never been confirmed by the Holy See. Torquemada’s object was gained for, though it would be too much to say that this alone won Ferdinand’s consent to the expulsion, it undoubtedly contributed largely to that result. The edict of expulsion, it is true, makes no direct reference to the case but, in its labored efforts to magnify the dangers of Jewish proselytism it reflects distinctly the admissions extorted from the accused by the Inquisition.[387]

Thus the expulsion of the Jews from all the Spanish dominions came to be resolved upon. When this was bruited about the court, Abraham Senior and Abravanel offered a large sum from the aljamas to avert the blow. Ferdinand was inclined to accept it, but Isabella was firm. The story is current that, when the offer was under consideration, Torquemada forced his way into the royal presence and holding aloft a crucifix boldly addressed the sovereigns: “Behold the crucified whom the wicked Judas sold for thirty pieces of silver. If you approve that deed, sell him for a greater sum. I resign my power; nothing shall be imputed to me but you will answer to God!”[388] Whether this be true or not, the offer was rejected and, on March 30th, the edict of expulsion was signed, though apparently there was delay in its promulgation, for it was not published in Barcelona until May 1st.[389] It gave the entire Jewish population of Spain until July 31st in which to change their religion or to leave the country, under penalty of death, which was likewise threatened for any attempt to return. During the interval they were taken under the royal protection; they were permitted to sell their effects and carry the proceeds with them, except that, under a general law, the export of gold and silver was prohibited.[390]

A supplementary edict of May 14th granted permission to sell lands, leaving but little time in which to effect such transactions and this was still more fatally limited in Aragon, where Ferdinand sequestrated all Jewish property in order to afford claimants and creditors the opportunity to prove their rights, the courts being ordered to decide all such cases promptly. Still less excusable was his detaining from all sales an amount equal to all the charges and taxes which the Jews would have paid him, thus realizing a full year’s revenue from the trifling sums obtained through forced sales by the unhappy exiles.[391] In Castile, the inextricable confusion arising from the extensive commercial transactions of the Jews led to the issue, May 30th, of a decree addressed to all the officials of the land, ordering all interested parties to be summoned to appear within twenty days to prove their claims, which the courts must settle by the middle of July. All debts falling due prior to the date of departure were to be promptly paid; if due to Christians by Jews who had not personal effects sufficient to satisfy them, the creditors were to take land at an appraised valuation or be paid out of other debts paid by Jews. For debts falling due subsequently, if due by Jews, the debtors had to pay at once or furnish adequate security; if due by Christians or Moors, the creditors were either to leave powers to collect at maturity or to sell the claims to such purchasers as they could find.[392] These regulations afford us a glimpse into the complexities arising from the convulsion thus suddenly precipitated and, as the Jews were almost universally creditors, we can readily imagine how great were their losses and how many Christian debtors must have escaped payment.

The sovereigns also shared in the spoils. When the exiles reached the seaports to embark they found that an export duty of two ducats per head had been levied upon them, which they were obliged to pay out of their impoverished store.[393] Moreover, the threat of confiscation for those who overstayed the time was rigorously enforced and, in some cases at least, the property thus seized was granted to nobles to compensate their losses by the banishment of their Jews.[394] All effects left behind also were seized; in many cases the dangers of the journey, the prohibition to carry coin and the difficulty of procuring bills of exchange, led the exiles to make deposits with trustworthy friends to be remitted to them in their new homes, all of which was seized by the crown. The amount of this was sufficient to require a regular organization of officials deputed to hunt up these deposits and other fragments of property that could be escheated, and we find correspondence on the subject as late as 1498.[395] Efforts were even also made to follow exiles and secure their property on the plea that they had taken with them prohibited articles, and Henry VII of England and Ferdinand of Naples were appealed to for assistance in cases of this description.[396]

The terror and distress of the exodus, we are told, were greatly increased by an edict issued by Torquemada, as inquisitor-general, in April, forbidding any Christian, after August 9th, from holding any communication with Jews, or giving them food or shelter, or aiding them in any way.[397] Such addition to their woes was scarce necessary, for it would be difficult to exaggerate the misery inflicted on a population thus suddenly uprooted from a land in which their race was older than that of their oppressors. Stunned at first by the blow, as soon as they rallied from the shock, they commenced preparations for departure. An aged rabbi, Isaac Aboab, with thirty prominent colleagues, was commissioned to treat with João II of Portugal for refuge in his dominions. He drove a hard bargain, demanding a cruzado a head for permission to enter and reside for six months.[398] For those who were near the coasts, arrangements were made for transhipment by sea, mostly from Cadiz and Barcelona on the south and Laredo on the north. To the north-east, Navarre afforded an asylum, by order of Jean d’Albret and his wife Leonora, although the cities were somewhat recalcitrant.[399] As the term approached, two days’ grace were allowed, bringing it to August 2d, the 9th of Ab, a day memorable in Jewish annals for its repeated misfortunes.[400]

The sacrifices entailed on the exiles were enormous. To realize in so limited a time on every species of property not portable, with means of transportation so imperfect, was almost impossible and, in a forced sale of such magnitude, the purchasers had a vast advantage of which they fully availed themselves. An eye-witness tells us that the Christians bought their property for a trifle; they went around and found few buyers, so that they were compelled to give a house for an ass and a vineyard for a little cloth or linen: in some places the miserable wretches, unable to get any price, burnt their homes and the aljamas bestowed the communal property on the cities. Their synagogues they were not allowed to sell, the Christians taking them and converting them into churches, wherein to worship a God of justice and love.[401] The cemeteries, for which they felt peculiar solicitude, were in many places made over to the cities, on condition of preservation from desecration and use only for pasturage; where this was not done they were confiscated and Torquemada obtained a fragment of the spoil by securing, March 23, 1494, from Ferdinand and Isabella, the grant of that of Avila for his convent of Santo Tomas.[402]

The resolute constancy displayed in this extremity was admirable. There were comparatively few renegades and, if Abraham Senior was one of them, it is urged in extenuation that Isabella, who was loath to lose his services, threatened, if he persisted in his faith, to adopt still sharper measures against his people and he, knowing her capacity in this direction, submitted to baptism; he and his family had for god-parents the sovereigns and Cardinal González de Mendoza; they assumed the name of Coronel which long remained distinguished.[403] The frailes exerted themselves everywhere in preaching, but the converts were few and only of the lowest class; the Inquisition had changed the situation and San Vicente Ferrer himself would have found missionary work unfruitful, for the dread of exile was less than that of the Holy Office and the quemadero.

There was boundless mutual helpfulness; the rich aided the poor and they made ready as best they could to face the perils of the unknown future. Before starting, all the boys and girls over twelve were married. Early in July the exodus commenced and no better idea of this pilgrimage of grief can be conveyed than by the simple narrative of the good cura of Palacios. Disregarding, he says, the wealth they left behind and confiding in the blind hope that God would lead them to the promised land, they left their homes, great and small, old and young, on foot, on horseback, on asses or other beasts or in wagons, some falling, others rising, some dying, others being born, others falling sick. There was no Christian who did not pity them; everywhere they were invited to conversion and some were baptized, but very few, for the rabbis encouraged them and made the women and children play on the timbrel. Those who went to Cadiz hoped that God would open a path for them across the sea; but they stayed there many days, suffering much and many wished that, they had never been born. From Aragon and Catalonia they put to sea for Italy or the Moorish lands or whithersoever fortune might drive them. Most of them had evil fate, robbery and murder by sea and in the lands of their refuge. This is shown by the fate of those who sailed from Cadiz. They had to embark in twenty-five ships of which the captain was Pero Cabron; they sailed for Oran where they found the corsair Fragoso and his fleet; they promised him ten thousand ducats not to molest them, to which he agreed, but night came on and they sailed for Arcilla. (a Spanish settlement in Morocco), where a tempest scattered them. Sixteen ships put into Cartagena, where a hundred and fifty souls landed and asked for baptism; then the fleet went to Málaga, where four hundred more did the same. The rest reached Arcilla and went to Fez. Multitudes also sailed from Gibraltar to Arcilla, whence they set out for Fez, under guard of Moors hired for the purpose, but they were robbed on the journey and their wives and daughters were violated. Many returned to Arcilla, where the new arrivals, on hearing of this, remained, forming a large camp. Then they divided into two parties, one persisting in going to Fez, the other preferring baptism at Arcilla, where the commandant, the Count of Boron, treated them kindly and the priests baptized them in squads with sprinklers. The count sent them back to Spain and, up to 1496, they were returning for baptism—in Palacios, Bernaldez baptized as many as a hundred, some of them being rabbis. Those who reached Fez were naked and starving and lousy. The king, seeing them a burden, permitted them to return and they straggled back to Arcilla, robbed and murdered on the road, the women violated and the men often cut open in search of gold thought to be concealed in their stomachs. Those who remained in Fez built a great Jewry for themselves of houses of straw; one night it took fire, burning all their property and fifty or a hundred souls—after which came a pestilence, carrying off more than four thousand. Ferdinand and Isabella, seeing that all who could get back returned for baptism, set guards to keep them out unless they had money to support themselves.[404]

The whole world was pitiless to these wretched outcasts, against whom every man’s hand was raised. Those who sought Portugal utilized the six months allotted to them by sending a party to Fez to arrange for transit there; many went and formed part of the luckless band whose misfortunes we have seen. Others remained, the richer paying the king a hundred cruzados per household, the poorer eight cruzados a head, while a thousand, who could pay nothing, were enslaved. These King Manoel emancipated, on his accession in 1495, but in 1497 he enforced conversion on all. Then in Lisbon, at Easter, 1506, a New Christian in a Dominican church, chanced to express a doubt as to a miraculous crucifix, when he was dragged out by the hair and slain; the Dominicans harangued the mob, parading the streets with the crucifix and exciting popular passion till a massacre ensued in which the most revolting cruelties were perpetrated. It raged for three days and ended only when no more victims could be found, the number of slain being estimated at several thousand.[405] The further fate of these refugees we shall have occasion to trace hereafter.

In Navarre, where the exiles had been kindly received, the era of toleration was brief. In 1498, an edict, based on that of Ferdinand and Isabella, gave them the alternative of baptism or expulsion and, at the same time, such difficulties were thrown in the way of exile that they mostly submitted to baptism and remained a discredited class, subjected to numerous disabilities.[406] Naples, whither numbers flocked, afforded an inhospitable refuge. In August, 1492, nine caravels arrived there, loaded with Jews and infected with pestilence, which they communicated to the city, whence it spread through the kingdom and raged for a year, causing a mortality of twenty thousand. Then, in the confusion following the invasion of Charles VIII, in 1495, the people rose against them; many abandoned their religion to escape slaughter or slavery; many were carried off to distant lands and sold as slaves; this tribulation lasted for three years, during which those who were steadfast in the faith were imprisoned or burnt or exposed to the caprices of the mob.[407] Turkey, on the whole, proved the most satisfactory refuge, where Bajazet found them such profitable subjects that he ridiculed the wisdom popularly ascribed to the Spanish sovereigns who could commit so great an act of folly. Though exposed to occasional persecution, they continued to flourish; most of the existing Jews of Turkey in Europe and a large portion of those of Turkey in Asia, are descendants of the exiles; they absorbed the older communities and their language is still the Spanish of the sixteenth century.[408]

When the fate of the exiles was, for the most part, so unendurable, it was natural that many should seek to return to their native land and, as we have seen from Bernaldez, large numbers did so. At first this was tacitly permitted, on condition of conversion, provided they brought money with them, but the sovereigns finally grew fearful that the purity of the faith would be impaired and, in 1499, an explanatory edict was issued, decreeing death and confiscation for any Jew entering Spain, whether a foreigner or returning exile, even if he asked for baptism, unless beforehand he sent word that he wished to come for that purpose, when he was to be baptized at the port of entry and a notarial act was to be taken. That this savage edict was pitilessly enforced is manifested by several cases in 1500 and 1501. Moreover, all masters of Jewish slaves were ordered to send them out of the country within two months, unless they would submit to baptism.[409] Spain was too holy a land to be polluted with the presence of a Jew, even in captivity.

In the absence of trustworthy statistics, all estimates of the number of victims must be more or less a matter of guess-work and consequently they vary with the impressions or imagination of the annalist. Bernaldez informs us that Rabbi Mair wrote to Abraham Senior that the sovereigns had banished 35,000 vassals, that is, 35,000 Jewish households, and he adds that, of the ten or twelve rabbis whom he baptized on their return, a very intelligent one, named Zentollo of Vitoria, told him that there were in Castile more than 30,000 married Jews and 6000 in the kingdoms of Aragon, making 160,000 souls when the edict was issued, which is probably as nearly correct an estimate as we can find.[410] With time the figures grew. Albertino, Inquisitor of Valencia, in 1534, quotes Reuchlin as computing the number of exiles at 420,000.[411] The cautious Zurita quotes Bernaldez and adds that others put the total at 400,000, while Mariana tells us that most authors assert the number of households to have been 170,000, and some put the total at 800,000 souls; Páramo quotes the figures of 124,000 households or over 600,000 souls.[412] Isidore Loeb, after an exhaustive review of all authorities, Jewish and Christian, reaches the estimate[413]—

and this, in view of the diminished number of Jews, as shown by the Repartimiento of 1474 (p. 125) is probably too large an estimate.

Whatever may have been the number, the sum of human misery was incomputable. Rabbi Joseph, whose father was one of the exiles, eloquently describes the sufferings of his race: “For some of them the Turks killed to take out the gold which they had swallowed to hide it; some of them hunger and the plague consumed and some of them were cast naked by the captains on the isles of the sea; and some of them were sold for men-servants and maid-servants in Genoa and its villages and some of them were cast into the sea.... For there were among those who were cast into the isles of the sea upon Provence a Jew and his old father fainting from hunger, begging bread, for there was no one to break unto him in a strange country. And the man went and sold his son for bread to restore the soul of the old man. And it came to pass, when he returned to his old father, that he found him fallen down dead and he rent his clothes. And he returned unto the baker to take his son and the baker would not give him back and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry for his son and there was none to deliver.”[414] Penniless, friendless and despised they were cast forth into a world which had been taught that to oppress them was a service to the Redeemer.

Yet such were the convictions of the period, in the fifteenth century after Christ had died for man, that this crime against humanity met with nothing but applause among contemporaries. Men might admit that it was unwise from the point of view of statesmanship and damaging to the prosperity of the land, but this only enhanced the credit due to the sovereigns whose piety was equal to the sacrifice. When, in 1495, Alexander VI granted to them the proud title of Catholic Kings, the expulsion of the Jews was enumerated among the services to the faith entitling them to this distinction.[415] Even so liberal and cultured a thinker as Gian Pico della Mirandola, praises them for it, while he admits that even Christians were moved to pity by the calamities of the sufferers, nearly all of whom were consumed by shipwreck, pestilence and hunger, rendering the destruction equal to that inflicted by Titus and Hadrian.[416] It is true that Machiavelli, faithful to his general principles, seeks to find in Ferdinand’s participation a political rather than a religious motive, but even he characterizes the act as a pietosa crudeltà.[417] So far, indeed, was it from being a cruelty, in the eyes of the theologians of the period, that Ferdinand was held to have exercised his power mercifully, for Arnaldo Albertino proved by the canon law that he would have been fully justified in putting them all to the sword and seizing their property.[418]

The Edict of Expulsion proclaimed to the world the policy which in its continuous development did so much for the abasement of Spain. At the same time it closed the career of avowed Jews in the Spanish dominions. Henceforth we shall meet with them as apostate Christians, the occasion and the victims of the Inquisition.

CHAPTER IV.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INQUISITION.

MUCH as the Conversos had gained, from a worldly point of view, by their change of religion, their position, in one respect, as we have seen, was seriously deteriorated. As Jews they might be despoiled and humiliated, confined in narrow Jewries and restricted as to their careers and means of livelihood, but withal they enjoyed complete freedom of faith, in which they were subjected only to their own rabbis. They were outside of the Church and the Church claimed no jurisdiction over them in matters of religion, so long as they did not openly blaspheme Christianity or seek to make proselytes. As soon, however, as the convert was baptized he became a member of the Church and for any aberration from orthodoxy he was amenable to its laws. As the Inquisition had never existed in Castile and was inactive in Aragon, while the bishops, who held ordinary jurisdiction over heresy and apostasy, were too turbulent and worldly to waste thought on the exercise of their authority in such matters, the Conversos seem never to have recognized the possibility of being held to account for any secret leaning to the faith which they had ostensibly abandoned. The circumstances under which the mass of conversions was effected—threats of massacre or the wearing pressure of inhuman laws—were not such as to justify confidence in the sincerity of the neophytes, nor, when baptism was administered indiscriminately to multitudes, was there a possibility of detailed instruction in the complicated theology of their new faith. Rabbinical Judaism, moreover, so entwines itself with every detail of the believer’s daily life, and attaches so much importance to the observances which it enjoins, that it was impossible for whole communities thus suddenly Christianized, to abandon the rites and usages which, through so many generations, had become a part of existence itself. Earnest converts might have brought up their children as Christians and the grandchildren might have outgrown the old customs, but the Conversos could not be earnest converts, and the sacred traditions, handed down by father to son from the days of the Sanhedrin, were too precious to be set aside. The Anusim, as they were known to their Hebrew brethren, thus were unwilling Christians, practising what Jewish rites they dared, and it was held to be the duty of all Jews to bring them back to the true faith.[419]